Turks Fume Over Stance By French On Armenia

By STEPHEN KINZER

Published: June 21, 1998

ISTANBUL, Turkey, June 19—
A one-sentence resolution adopted last month by the French National Assembly has provoked a storm of protest in Turkey and threatens to disrupt relations between the two countries.

The resolution says simply: ''France publicly recognizes the Armenian genocide of 1915.'' Successive Turkish Governments have vigorously insisted that massacres of Armenians by the Ottoman Government in that year did not constitute genocide. They consider such assertions part of a campaign by modern-day Armenia to claim regions of eastern Turkey from which their ancestors were brutally deported.

Turkey's President, Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and parliamentary speaker have all written strongly worded protest letters to their counterparts in France. Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz said the Turkish public was ''very sensitive'' on the issue, adding, ''Turkey would consider null and void any form of recognition of an Armenian genocide.''

In an even stronger indication of displeasure, Turkey suspended a $145 million deal to buy antitank missiles from the French company Aerospatiale and canceled a planned meeting at which further military purchases were to be discussed. Officials warned that French contractors might be excluded from bidding on huge contracts including a $4.5 billion program to build a new tank force and another worth $3.5 billion for a new generation of military helicopters.

The Mayor of Izmir, Turkey, where a French consortium is a leading candidate for a billion-dollar contract to build a new subway, said he would veto any French participation if the genocide resolution became law. Another French consortium is bidding to build a nuclear power plant in western Turkey.

French officials have sought to calm Turkey's fears. They have pointed out that the resolution does not fix blame for the killing of Armenians and promised that it will have no effect on bilateral relations.

''This bill is not about foreign policy,'' said Yves Doutriaux, a spokesman for Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine, after Mr. Vedrine met with a Turkish delegation in Paris. ''The minister stressed that French policy toward Turkey would not change, nor was there a demand on the part of deputies that it should be changed.''

The resolution was introduced in the National Assembly by 80 Socialist deputies, including Jack Lang, chairman of the parliamentary committee on foreign relations, and Laurent Fabius, president of the assembly. It was unanimously adopted at a session at which only 29 of the 500 assembly members were present. Mr. Fabius said it was ''in no way a gesture against modern Turkey.''

To become law, the resolution must be passed by the Senate and signed by President Jacques Chirac. Mr. Chirac is planning a visit to Armenia later this year. About 300,000 people of Armenian descent live in France, and French-Armenian ties have historically been close.

Some French officials quietly suggested recently that they hoped to arrange for the resolution to die in the Senate. That solution is not enough for some Turks, though.

''What we prefer is neither the suspension nor the burial of the bill in the Senate, but the actual killing of it,'' said Hakan Tartan, a member of the Turkish Parliament who was part of a Turkish delegation that visited Paris to protest the resolution. ''I told the deputies that this draft law has created a great outcry in Turkey.''

The question of what happened during the forced deportation of Armenians from eastern Anatolia in 1915 is highly emotional for Turks and Armenians. Armenians say that 1.5 million of their people were slaughtered in the first modern genocide. Turks say 300,000 Armenians died after their military leaders sided with Russia in an attempt to separate the region from Turkey.

Free discussion of the issue in Turkey is all but impossible. Writers have been prosecuted for asserting that the Armenian position has merit.

Turkish officials fear that adoption of a genocide resolution in France could set an example for other parliaments in Europe and elsewhere. They say it could also encourage Armenian militants like the gunmen who killed 34 Turkish diplomats and their relatives in the 1970's and 80's.

The French police have strengthened their units protecting the Turkish Embassy in Paris, and Turkey's Foreign Minister, Ismail Cem, has sent a notice to Turkish diplomats abroad urging them to take extra security precautions.

President Suleyman Demirel told members of the Turkish Parliament on Wednesday that Turkey and France were old friends and that Turkey was ''not expecting such behavior, which would spoil the friendship.''